1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving characteristics diagnosis device, to a driving characteristics diagnosis system, to a driving characteristics diagnosis method, to an information output device, and to an information output method.
2. Description of Related Art
In the prior art, driving characteristics diagnosis for estimation and evaluation of the roughness of driving by a driver and of the risk of accident that he presents and so on has been performed by measuring acceleration operation, braking operation, steering operation and so on by the driver, using sensors mounted to the vehicle. Furthermore, the result of this type of driving characteristics diagnosis can also be utilized for a service of providing driving advice to a driver whose accident risk is high, and for a service of varying the charge for automobile insurance according to the driving level of the driver. By taking advantage of these services, a user(driver) is able to enjoy the advantages of reducing his accident rate, of keeping down the cost of his insurance by driving safely, and so on.
In relation to driving characteristics diagnosis, the driving support device for a vehicle described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2013-30188 is per se known. This device acquires both short time period data specifying the current vehicle running state and the current driver actions, and medium time period data specifying the running state and driver actions during the current day. And driving diagnosis is performed by comparing the distribution of the short time period data with the distribution of the medium time period data each other, so that the driving diagnosis result is evaluated according to two evaluation standards. Due to this, the conviction conveyed by the diagnosis result is enhanced.
However, with the device described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2013-30188, no consideration is given to user action due to the influence of some external cause, such as some other vehicle including a bicycle or a motorcycle or the like, a pedestrian in the neighborhood of the subject vehicle, the environment surrounding the subject vehicle, or the like. Due to this, in some cases the result of diagnosis differ from the result that the user is entitled to expect, so that there is the problem that the conviction that the result convey to the user is low.